Barbarian invasions
invasions.
 Germanic expansion.
 Population increase and Huns.
Augustulus
 Augustulus deposed by
barbarians in 476.
 How dark the “Dark Ages”?
 Evidence of population decline.
 From roving bandits to
sedentary bandits.
1
The feudal system
system.
 Change in the MES of
militaryy technology.
gy
 The great stirrup controversy.
 Feudalism as a “contract.”
 Exchange of work for defense.
 Why an in-kind exchange?
 Serfdom: tying
y g workers to the land.
Charlemagne crowned emperor
p Leo III (800
(
C.E.),
), from
byy Pope
 Labor shortage and rent
distribution.
 Example: professional sports.
Grandes Chroniques de France
(14th Century), Bibliothèque
Nationale de France.
2
F
d li
t
i ht
Feudalism
as a system
off rights.
Although full
grown feudalism was
full-grown
largely the result of the breakdown of
older government and law, it both
inherited law from the past and created
it by a rapid growth of custom based
on present fact. In one sense it may
be defined as an arrangement of
society based on contract, expressed or
implied. The status of a person
depended in every way on his position
on the land, and on the other hand
land-tenure determined political rights
and duties
duties.
— The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History
3
F
d li
t
i ht
Feudalism
as a system
off rights.
g the feudal contract were
The acts constituting
called homage and investiture. The tenant or
vassal knelt before the lord surrounded by his
court (curia), placing his folded hands between
those of the lord
lord, and thus became his ‘man’
man
(homme, whence the word homage). … The
lord in turn responded by ‘investiture’, handing
to his vassal a banner, a staff, a clod of earth, a
charter, or other symbol of the property or office
conceded, the fief (feodum or Lehn) as it was
termed …. This was the free and honourable
tenure characterized by military service
service, but the
peasant, whether serf or free, equally swore a
form of fealty and was thus invested with the
tenement he held of his lord. The feudal nexus
thus created essentially involved reciprocity.
— The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History
4
The manorial system
system.
 Villein tenancy.
 Disappearance of slavery.
 The custom of the manor.
 Demesne obligation.
 Three days of week-work on
the lord’s land.
 An input-sharing contract.
October, from Les très Riches Heures du Duc de
Berry (c. 1412). The Chantilly Museum, Paris.
5
Early medieval agriculture
agriculture.
 Traditional individualistic subsistence
agriculture.
 Shared common “wastes” with little
common-pool pressure.
 “Sedentary pastoralism” takes precedence
over cultivation of arable.
 Eventually: communal control over
common-field grazing.
6
E
l ti
i l system.
t
Evolution
off th
the manorial
 Population growth leads
to nucleation.
nucleation
 Peasants leave hamlets
and assemble in villages.
 Arable of hamlets
merged
g to become
village arable.
June, from Les très Riches Heures du Duc de
Berry (c. 1412). The Chantilly Museum, Paris.
7
E
l ti
i l system.
t
Evolution
off th
the manorial
Population growth leads to
increased demand.
 Labor transferred from
pastoralism to cultivation of the
arable.
 “Cerealization” and “destocking.”
 “Common of shack”: grazing on
the fallow arable
arable.
 Final element: scattering of
arable holdings.
June, from Les très Riches Heures du Duc de
Berry (c. 1412). The Chantilly Museum, Paris.
8
Crop rotation
rotation.
Three-course rotation in wide use by ninth century.
century
 Spring crop:
 O
Oats/barley
t /b l or peas/beans.
/b
 Harvested in summer.
 Autumn sowing of wheat
or rye, harvested
following summer.
 A year fallow.
Four seasons and seasonal labors. From
Bartholomaeus Anglicus (Bartholomew the
Englishman), On the Properties of Things.
France, Le Mans 15th Century. Bibliothèque
Nationale de France.
 Nitrogen fixing by soil
bacteria
bacteria.
 Manure from pasturing.
9
The open
field system
open-field
system.
10
Representative village
village.
Physical
Ph sical structure.
st ct e
 Division into arable and
non-arable land.
 “Waste” for grazing.
 Arable divided into two
or more fields
fields.
 Hundreds of acres each.
 Arable subdivided into
elongated narrow strips.
 But waste not subdivided
subdivided.
11
Representative village
village.
Ownership
O ne ship structure.
st ct e
 Villeins,
Villeins copyholders,
cop holde s
and freeholders.
 Not much practical
difference.
 OFS as a village
system, not a
manorial system.
 Commons
C
owned
d
collectively.
 Not “unowned
unowned.”
12
Representative village
village.
Institutional
Instit tional structure.
st ct e
 Management
off the
M
h
Commons.
 Changeover from private to
collective rights.
 Use of commons.
 Joint expenses.
 Manor court or village
meeting.
 Set planting and harvesting
dates.
 Prevented overuse of commons.
 Controlled private exchange of
strips.
13
Representative village
village.
Technological structure.
st ct e
 Little specialization in
production.
 Except near big cities.
 Specialized farms didn’t
use the OFS.
 High transportation and
transaction costs.
 Some activities collective.
 Grazing, plowing,
harvesting.
 Some activities p
private.
 Sowing, weeding.
14
The OFS: economic analysis
analysis.
 Fine-tuned
Fi t
d adaptation
d t ti to
t
diversified autarkic production.
 Pastoralism and crop rotation.
 Many tasks, with different levels
of economies of scale and
g
different costs of monitoring.
 Manage tasks collectively when
economies of scale high and
monitoring costs low.
 Assign private property rights when
economies of scale low and
monitoring costs high.
July, from Les très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
(c. 1412). The Chantilly Museum, Paris.
15
Scattering
Scattering.
16
S
tt i
l explanations.
l
ti
Scattering:
early
 Size of plow team.
team
 Land in proportion to contribution.
 But scattering observed even when light plow used.
 Desire for equality.
 But there were many inequalities among peasants.
 Partible inheritance
inheritance.
 But England had primogeniture.
 Assarting.
 Creating new arable form the waste.
 General problem: why does scattering persist?
 Active markets in strips.
17
Scattering and risk
risk.
 McCloskey: scattering
as a form of insurance.
 Variability of climate
and soil over small
areas.
areas
 Scattering as portfolio
diversification in the
absence of other
assets.
18
Problems with the risk
h
th i
hypothesis.
 Landlords provide de facto “charity.”
 We don’t see less scattering in villages with
landlords.
a d o ds
 Scattering stabilizes relative peasant outputs,
but doesn’t insure aggregate output against
shocks.
h k
 And if scattering is costly, it increases chance of
starvation.
 Peasants had better methods of insurance:
 Livestock another portfolio asset.
 Extensive evidence of grain storage
storage.
19
S
tt i
d th
fi ld system.
t
Scattering
and
the open-field
 OFS is
i an efficient
ffi i t system
t
for managing
g g autarkic
subsistence farming when
tasks differ in scale and
monitoring-cost properties.
 But why scattering?
20
S
tt i
d th
fi ld system.
t
Scattering
and
the open-field
 Dahlman:
scattering
D hl
tt i helps
h l
preserve OFS.
 By increasing costs of private
g reduces
enclosure,, scattering
“hold-up” threats.
 Scattering protects the system
against the individual.
21
S
tt i
d th
fi ld system.
t
Scattering
and
the open-field
 Fenoaltea: optimal allocation of labor.
labor
 Optimal farm management would assign
labor to different parts of the fields at
different times.
 But central direction implies costly monitoring
 Ownership of scattered strips preserves
incentives.
 Scattering protects the individual against
the system.
y
 Collective activities (especially harvesting)
capacity constrained – not all can be harvested.
 Without scattering, some peasant fields would
never be harvested at all in some years.
22
S
t i ttragedies.
di
Symmetric
 Common pool:
 Everyone has use rights.
 No one has exclusion rights.
g
 Common pool a function of scheme of
property rights, not (just) technology.
 Tragedy
T aged of the commons
commons:
 Overuse of resources.
 In the limit, full dissipation of rents.
 Correctives:
 Create and enforce exclusion rights.
 Collective management schemes (like
the OFS).
23
S
t i ttragedies.
di
Symmetric
 Anticommons:
 Many entities have exclusion rights
(veto power).
 Tragedy of the anticommons:
 Underuse of resources.
 In the limit
limit, full dissipation of rents.
rents
 Examples:
 Bureaucracy, especially in postpost
Soviet/developing countries.
 Patents in complex systems products.
 The
Th Open
O
Field
Fi ld System
S t
as
semicommons.
24
S
tt i
d th
fi ld system.
t
Scattering
and
the open-field
 Smith: the semicommons.
 Mixing common and private
ownership
hi to
t take
t k advantage
d
t
off
different levels of economies of
scale.
scale
 Scattering protects individuals
against other individuals.
individuals
 Problem of trampling and manure
allocation during grazing.
25
The OFS: economic analysis
analysis.
 Fine-tuned
Fi t
d adaptation
d t ti to
t
diversified autarkic production.
 Pastoralism and crop rotation.
 Many tasks, with different levels
of economies of scale and
g
different costs of monitoring.
 Manage tasks collectively when
economies of scale high and
monitoring costs low.
 Assign private property rights when
economies of scale low and
monitoring costs high.
July, from Les très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
(c. 1412). The Chantilly Museum, Paris.
26